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“What is the Natural Law’s Relation to the Divine Law?”

   
by Patrick Gordon
University of Dallas
Thomistic Summer Conference 2024

 

Introduction

In the following paper, I consider the nature of Aquinas’s natural law theory and the relationship it holds to the divine law. My inspiration for this topic came in part from my encounter with some recent scholarship surrounding a related issue, namely Aquinas’s account of the relationship between the natural acquired virtues and the infused moral virtues.

Unsurprisingly, scholars have landed on a wide array of conflicting interpretations concerning Aquinas’s acquired-infused virtue account, and some either denounce the acquired moral virtues as real virtues or wish to advance the argument that the cultivation of the natural acquired virtues is beneath the dignity of the Christian moral life. For instance, Angela Knobel has recently written:

The acquired virtues are ordered to genuine goods, and the pagan who cultivates them does indeed become disposed to receive the gift of grace. But it would be entirely inappropriate for a Christian to set his sights on Aristotelian acquired virtues. For the Christian, anything less than the cultivation of the infused moral virtues will always be a falling short.^[1]

While it is not my intention to directly engage in the substance of this debate here, such provocative claims have encouraged me to consider further the related issue of how Aquinas understands the relationship between the natural and divine laws. For Aquinas the natural law has a role in prescribing the acts of all of the natural virtues, and likewise, the divine law—or more precisely, the New Law through its precepts of charity— commands all of the acts of the infused moral virtues. Hence, if it is the case that the Christian moral life is exclusively concerned with the infused moral virtues, this would seem to call into serious question what role the natural law retains, if any, within the Christian moral life.

Allow me to offer one further reason I believe this issue is worth exploring. Much of the contemporary interest and discourse surrounding Aquinas’s natural law theory has been constrained to questions of how compatible or useful the natural law might be for promoting virtuous citizens and safeguarding the political common good within our post-Enlightenment political systems that have sought to remain entirely severed from theological and religious commitments. As much as Aquinas’s natural law theory may be of value for our contemporary pluralistic regimes, I would suggest that we should not principally view Aquinas’s natural law theory in this anachronistic light. Severing the natural law from its relationship to the divine law (and even more fundamentally from the eternal law) will prevent us from accessing the true richness and depth of Aquinas’s legal theory.

In short, then, I wish to encourage a reexamination or even rediscovery of Aquinas’s natural law theory by considering its particular relation to the higher divine law. To this end, I will first consider Aquinas’s general theory of law before proceeding to offer a basic overview of his accounts for the natural and divine laws. Finally, I will explore the relationship natural and divine laws hold and conclude by considering how Aquinas’s legal theory includes an Augustinian notion of the ordo amoris. Ultimately, I defend the thesis that the divine law necessarily presupposes the natural law’s precepts and that the natural law therefore does indeed retain a highly significant role within the Christian moral life.

 

Aquinas’s View of Law

In beginning his so-called “Treatise on Law” within the prima-secundae of his Summa Theologiae, Aquinas begins by considering the nature of law, arriving ultimately at four essential features that comprise his definition of law. These four elements include law as (i.) an ordinance of reason, (ii.) directed to the common good, (iii.) made by one in authority over the community, and (iv.) promulgated.^[2] We do well to see that Aquinas’s definition of law seems to be constructed from Aristotle’s four causes. In this lens, “an ordinance of reason” is law’s formal cause; its final cause, is that law is “directed to the common good;” the efficient cause is found in law’s being made “by one who is in charge over a community;” and finally, law is “materialized” as it were through “promulgation.”

This Aristotelian structuring of the definition for law is significant, since from the outset, it manifests Aquinas’s instinct to view law as connected to nature. Like the Aristotelian conception of nature, Aquinas sees law as necessarily possessing a definitive form (i.e. as a rational ordering) and of having a correlative telos or perfective end that it promotes (i.e. the instantiation of some common or complete good). Just as a substance’s form serves as a kind of measure for its final end or substantial perfection, the activity of reason directing acts towards the realization of the common good serves as a measure and rule for law. Thus, Aquinas states: “The rule and measure of human acts is reason, which is the first principle of human acts…since it belongs to reason to direct to the end, which is the first principle in all matters of action.”^[3]

However, there are various forms of law and likewise various kinds of universal or complete goods. Thus, Aquinas proceeds to consider various expressions of law, and ultimately posits four kinds: the eternal, natural, human, and divine.

The most fundamental and universal form of law, in which all other genuine laws arise or participate, is the eternal law. Aquinas understands the eternal law to be God’s divine reason that actively orders the totality of being towards the common good of the universe which is ultimately God Himself. The eternal law is the logos of God’s divine wisdom, His eternal conception for the ordering of the totality of creation. Aquinas describes God analogically here as a “craftsman” and “governor.” Just as a craftsman and his art function as the efficient and formal cause of an artifact, so too, God as Creator, is the efficient and formal cause of creation by giving creatures their esse (or existence) and bringing about their natural forms or essences from His eternal wisdom. And as a governor’s role is to direct his city to the common good, so too, God is the final cause of creation, and lovingly bestows creatures various powers and intrinsic principles that incline them to their specific perfections. Aquinas states: “Just as the divine wisdom’s conception has the character of an artistic conception or exemplar because all things are created through it, so too the divine wisdom’s conception has the character of law insofar as it moves all things to their appropriate ends.”^[4]

Hence, the eternal law is the “highest law” insofar as it is the divine reason’s ordering of all of creation, and is therefore an ultimate “rule and measure,” for all other laws. Aquinas states:

Therefore, since the eternal law is the plan of governance that exists in the highest governor, all the plans of governance found in the lower governors must flow from the eternal law…. Hence, all laws flow from the eternal law to the extent that they participate in right reason.^[5]

 

The Natural Law

For Aquinas man’s rational nature allows and inclines him to participate in the eternal law in a unique manner. He states:

Now among all creatures, the rational creature is subject to divine providence in a more excellent manner, because he himself participates in providence, providing for himself and for others. Hence, in him too, there is a participation in eternal reason through which he has a natural inclination to his due act and end. And the rational creature’s mode of participation in the eternal law is called natural law.^[6]

Man’s reason enables him to know his natural end and to participate in God’s eternal law by ordering his activities according to this good. Aquinas says man’s reason and his rational appetite (i.e. his will) are what make him created in God’s image and likeness, and it is through developing and exercising his proper use of reason that man is truly free and is properly called the “master of his own acts.”^[7]

The natural law is “promulgated” by God having “sown” into man’s nature an inclination towards the good of reason. Consequently, Aquinas believes the natural law is “rooted” in man by means of an intellectual habit that Aquinas, in following the patristic tradition, terms “synderesis.”^[8] Synderesis is man’s natural and universally possessed habit of reason that conditions him to have an intuitive grasp of the first principles of practical reasoning, of which the most basic is the principle that “the good is what all things desire.”^[9]

It is by the natural habit of synderesis and this first principle of practical reasoning that all men necessarily apprehend the first and most universal precept of the natural law, namely that the “good ought to be done and pursued and that evil ought to be avoided.”^[10] All other precepts of the natural law, including all the other “primary precepts” are founded upon this first fundamental precept.

Furthermore, Aquinas asserts that the ordering of man’s various natural inclinations, including those of his substantival, animal, and rational nature, correspond to the ordering of the natural law’s precepts, and are, as I see them, revelatory of the primary precepts.^[11] Because the primary precepts of the natural law correspond to the essential inclinations of man’s nature, these precepts are universally known and unchanging. Such primary precepts stand in contrast to what Aquinas refers to as the “secondary precepts” of the natural law, which are precepts that are derived from the primary precepts. The secondary precepts are less universal and are not by nature immutable or binding in all circumstances, nor are they intuitively grasped by all, especially by those who lack moral education or by those who have become habituated in vice.

While there exist various natural inclinations in man, it is man’s inclination towards reason which is preeminent, and therefore, the natural law’s precepts are principally concerned with commanding the acts of virtue, that is, the acts that are ordered and measured by the rule of reason. Aquinas states:

Since the rational soul is the proper form of man, every man has a natural inclination toward acting in accord with reason—which is just to act in accord with virtue. Hence, in this sense all of the acts of the virtues belong to the natural law, since the faculty of reason proper to each man dictates by nature that he act virtuously.^[12]

Aquinas proceeds to argue that the natural law governs all virtuous acts insofar as virtues are those very qualities that dispose man to act in a manner conducive to his natural flourishing as a rational being. Moreover, living in a rational manner necessarily entails the political good since man is not self-sufficient, and it is only in a healthy and stable political society that men can secure the conditions for leisure that ultimately allows for them to engage in the naturally highest and best activity of contemplation. Thus, the natural law not only prescribes the acts of virtues that pertain to the common good of man’s individual nature (such as the virtues of temperance and the courage of an individual man), but also orders all acts that pertain to man’s social and political end.

 

The Divine Law

I now turn to consider Aquinas’s account of the divine law. Aquinas believes that the divine law is divided into two forms: the Old and New Laws, which correspond to the Old and New Covenants or to the “two kinds of priesthood, the Levitical priesthood and Christ’s priesthood.”^[13]

Both Old and New Laws are a “single” divine law, but the Old Law is “imperfect” only virtually containing the perfect New Law. The Old and New Law are a single species of law, and “have the same end, namely, man’s subjection to God.”^[14] Nevertheless, the Old Law, as imperfect, could not fully ordain men to this end, but only ordered the Israelites to “a sensible and earthly good.”^[15]

The Old Law is comprised of moral precepts which are contained in the decalogue, as well as judicial, and ceremonial precepts that established how the Israelites were to worship God and order their political society. Here, it is worth noting that the New Law includes the moral precepts that were contained in the Old Law, while it no longer retains the judicial and ceremonial precepts, since these latter precepts were given only to prepare for and anticipate the coming of the Messiah. The divine law is thus made perfect and only fully realized through the “New Law,” which is instituted by Christ the Everlasting High Priest and is given through the grace of the Holy Spirit.^[16] The New Law’s precepts are contained essentially in the two great commandments of charity, namely that man should love God above all and love his neighbor as himself.

These precepts of charity direct man towards friendship with God and consequently with his neighbor. The divine law is thus, God’s rational ordering that directs man to attain communion with the highest possible common good – namely God Himself. The divine law, unlike the natural law, is not rooted in man naturally by way of an intellectual habit like synderesis. Rather, the divine law is made known through God’s direct revelation and is “instilled in man’s heart” through a special and super added divine gift, namely through the grace of the Holy Spirit, which a Christian receives at baptism.^[17] Aquinas states:

There are two ways in which a thing may be instilled into man. First, through being part of his nature, and thus the natural law is instilled into man. Second, a thing is instilled into man by being, as it were, added on to his nature by a gift of grace. In this way the New Law is instilled into man, not only by indicating to him what he should do, but also by helping him to accomplish it.^[18]

The graced-nature of the divine law also entails that man cannot fulfill these salvific precepts apart from God’s direct assistance. First, man cannot even know or love this ultimate end, that is the end of friendship with God, since this end is an object that exceeds man’s ability know by reason. Consequently, Aquinas believes that man’s capacity to know this end must be given to him through the infused virtue of faith, and his will can only be inclined to this end through the divinely infused virtues of hope and charity. Finally, the divine law’s precepts of charity establish a new measure for virtuous acts that exceeds the measure of natural reason, and therefore requires that in addition, man receive infused moral virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit that will properly dispose him to act well and in accord with his supernatural end.

 

The Relation of the Divine and Natural Law

We are now well positioned to examine the relationship between the natural and the divine laws. First, it is critical to see that Aquinas does not view the natural law as contradicting or antagonistic to the higher divine law. This is evident as the natural and divine laws are both related to one another by their common foundation in the eternal law – which is God’s own eternal wisdom and ordering of the totality of being. Indeed, God’s reason cannot contradict itself, and it is clear that both the natural and divine laws order man’s will towards the universal good, i.e. towards God Himself. In question 19 of the prima-secundae, Aquinas states: “It is from the eternal law, which is the Divine Reason, that human reason is the rule of the human will, from which the human derives its goodness.”^[19] This is why the intentional violation of any legitimate law is understood by Aquinas to be a “sin,” since a sin is a deliberate act that deviates from the order of right reason.^[20]

Moreover, Aquinas does not see the natural and divine laws as being wholly distinct from one another, as the moral precepts of the natural law are contained within the ten commandments (the decalogue). Indeed Aquinas asserts that “all of the moral precepts of the [Old] Law belong to the law of nature,”^[21] and moreover that “the precepts of the decalogue, as to the essence of justice which they contain, are unchangeable.”^[22] It is yet further significant that Aquinas does not believe the binding character of these moral precepts was principally derived from their being promulgated in the divine law, but rather from the law of nature. He states: “As to those precepts of the natural law contained in the Old Law, all were bound to observe the Old Law; not because they belonged to the Old Law, but because they belonged to the natural law.”^[23]

Aquinas believes that God promulgated these natural law precepts through the divine law on account of man’s fallen or concupiscent nature. While in his prelapsarian state man would have been able to fully apprehend and achieve the good proportionate to his nature by his own natural resources,^[24] after the fall, concupiscence has the devastating effect of darkening man’s natural light of reason and of weakening his will. Thus, man struggles to perceive the good that he ought to do, and even when he does apprehend this good, he often fails to move himself towards it in an upright manner. Hence, Aquinas states: “In order that man might be able to know without any hesitation what he should do and what he should avoid doing, it was necessary that he be directed to his proper acts by a law that is divinely given and is clearly such that it cannot be mistaken.”^[25]

Moreover, the New Law, being the grace of the Holy Spirit instilled into the heart of the Christian at baptism, strengthens man’s weakened nature, allowing him to carry out effectively the acts of the moral virtues. Aquinas comments:

In the state of perfect nature man needs a gratuitous strength superadded to natural strength for one reason, viz., in order to do and wish supernatural good; but for two reasons, in the state of corrupt nature, viz., in order to be healed, and furthermore in order to carry out works of supernatural virtue, which are meritorious.^[26]

It is apparent then, that the natural law’s incorporation into the divine law occurs because man’s reason and will are corrupted by the pride of concupiscence, and man requires God’s aid to guide him towards living and acting well.

However, the divine law is distinguished from the natural law and needed in addition to it because the divine law orders man directly to a higher end, man’s final end of beatitude or friendship with God, which is an end “disproportionate to natural human power.”^[27] Aquinas states:

Natural law participates in eternal law in a way proportioned to the power of human nature. But man has to be directed in a deeper way to his ultimate supernatural end. And so there is, in addition, a divinely given law, through which eternal law is participated in more deeply.^[28]

Aquinas certainly wishes to reject any form of the Pelagian heresy that would view man as capable of meriting salvation through his own natural powers. Rather, Aquinas defends that man cannot even conceive of his supernatural final end nor move himself to perform the acts necessary for salvation apart from divine aid which is given through the infused theological and moral virtues, and in addition, through the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

 

The Limits of Natural Law & Its Role in the Christian Moral Life

Thus, so far, we have seen that the natural and divine law are related through their sharing in the eternal law, and that the moral precepts of the natural law are subsumed by the divine law. However, these laws are distinct insofar as the natural law only orders man to an end that is commensurate with the good of human nature, an end that man can both know and move himself to attain by his own natural resources, while the divine law orders man towards a supernatural end, which man can only move himself towards through the aid of grace. I wish to conclude by considering how Aquinas’s account of law is immersed in an Augustinian notion of the ordo amoris. Examining this connection between law and the ordering of loves, allows us to achieve greater clarity and insight into how the natural law retains its goodness and compatibility with the divine law.

We can find evidence for an “ordo amoris” by considering how Aquinas’s account of the eternal law makes clear that all of creation has been instilled with natural principles that incline them towards the perfective ends of their nature, and moreover, towards the common good of the universe, namely God. This principle is poignantly expressed in a passage within the prima pars where Aquinas considers how or whether angels possess natural love or affection.

One of the objections to Aquinas’s thesis proposes that “upright affection (or love)” belongs to charity alone rather than to nature, and therefore that angels could not have a rightly ordered love outside the order of grace. Aquinas’s response is illuminating:

Just as a natural cognition is always true, so too a natural affection is always upright. For natural love is nothing other than an inclination instilled in the nature by the author of the nature. Therefore, to say that a natural inclination is not upright is to disparage the author of the nature. However, the rectitude of natural love is different from the rectitude of charity and virtue, since the latter rectitude is perfective of the former.^[29]

Thus, just as it would be wrong to “disparage” the rectitude of a natural inclination since this was instilled in the creature by the divine creator’s Wisdom, so too it would be wrong to disparage the natural law’s precepts which take their order from man’s natural inclinations. Moreover, Aquinas highlights here how “charity and virtue” perfect natural love. Thus, he indicates how the divine law through its precepts of charity, perfects the precepts of the natural law.

Earlier we noted Aquinas’s argument concerning the connection of the natural inclinations to the precepts of the natural law. In this way, man knows the precepts of the natural law because he possesses a natural love for the good of reason, that is, an inclination towards the good of his own rational nature. Indeed, Aquinas believes that the natural law even commands that man should love God as the highest principle of man’s nature^[30], which is further affirmed by Aquinas’s positioning of the virtue of religion as a natural moral virtue.^[31]

Nevertheless, Aquinas is clear that the natural love a rational creature possesses for God is not on the same order as charity. In charity, man possesses a love for God not on account of God as a first principle of his nature, but rather, on account of God’s own essence, that is, for God’s own sake. Aquinas calls this the love of friendship. This is, of course, a profoundly radical claim, which should perhaps even scandalize us, since the love of friendship implies a relation of equality, and man as a creature is of infinitely lower status than God. It is precisely for this reason, that man cannot naturally grasp God as an object of friendship or as being his ultimate end in this radical manner, apart from this being revealed directly by God. The New Law, is thus, that very gift of grace by which man becomes a partaker in the divine nature, and therefore, receives not only the grace that heals his nature, but also elevates it. In a beautiful passage, Aquinas writes:

When people possess virtue and love the good of reason, as a result, by virtue’s own inclination, they love those who are like them, i.e. other virtuous people, in whom the good of reason flourishes. But friendship towards God, insofar as God is blessed and the cause of blessedness, needs to precede those virtues that order us towards blessedness.^[32]

Thus, the divine law commands the acts of the virtues in a new way, since it commands them through the form of charity, enlightened by faith, rather than from the more limited perspective of natural reason and the natural inclination to the good of one’s created nature. Thus, the Christian must necessarily view even the natural acts of virtue in a new light, recognizing that his highest natural good is itself subordinated to or measured by a yet higher end, namely by God Himself and the common good of the City of God.

While charity’s object is God Himself, it can also order or direct other lower forms of love towards God. Aquinas states:

Since all human goods are ordered towards eternal blessedness as to their ultimate end, love in the sense of charity includes all types of human love, except those based upon sin, which cannot be ordered towards blessedness. In this way, the mutual love of family members, or fellow-citizens, or fellow pilgrims, and so on, can through charity, be meritorious.^[33]

Thus, Aquinas leaves open the possibility that our acts of virtue that accord with the natural law can become meritorious, not by their own intrinsic order which is directed towards the perfection of a natural good, but by becoming ordered to God through the mediation of charity.

This point should serve as a reminder that the natural law is, like the Old Law, imperfect, insofar as it can only directly order man towards the realization of an earthly and temporal good, namely the flourishing of his human nature and of the political common good. As such, the virtuous acts which are commanded by the natural law cannot be meritorious for the Christian unless these acts are mediated by the infused virtue of charity. For the Christian to become perfect, he must always strive to imitate Christ, and be willing to carry out acts that are directed to a higher order.

Thus, while the Christian is bound to obey the precepts of the natural law, to become perfectly virtuous, he must always order his relations with natural goods towards this higher end. That is, man must love the good of his rational nature, but he now loves it on account of his charity or friendship with God. Enlightened by grace, man can begin to see natural goods through the divine perspective, that is, to see created goods as desirable because they participate in God’s Own goodness and are made for God.

As pilgrims, or viatores, Christians will at times encounter a tension between what seem to be competing goods that accord with either man’s natural or supernatural end. Ultimately, however, Aquinas evidences an optimism that the order of nature and the order of grace can be reconciled, and that the Christian can still attend to the goods of his nature and earthly society as long as he always and only pursues these for the sake of his friendship with God, working in cooperation with God’s grace so as to become a fellow citizen of the saints and a member of the household of God.”^[34]

 

 

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